Al Arabiya, 05 September 2012 – The United Nations Security Council is experiencing “paralysis” when it comes to taking further action on the conflict in Syria, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday, as activists said more than 200 people were killed across the country.

The 15-member council has been unable to put concerted pressure on Syria since the start of the crisis 18 months ago, largely because Russia and China which have used their vetoes to block three resolutions.

“The council’s paralysis does the Syrian people harm. It also damages its own credibility,” Ban told an informal General Assembly debate on the 2005 U.N. concept of “responsibility to protect” civilians threatened by their own governments.

“We cannot look the other way while the increasing sectarian violence spirals out of control, the humanitarian emergency escalates and the crisis spills over borders,” he said.
“You have all seen the horrible images and reports coming out of Syria. Aerial bombardments of civilians. Mothers weeping, clutching their dead children in their arms,” he said. “Inaction cannot be an option for our community of nations.”

The United Nations says that nearly 20,000 people have been killed during the conflict that began as peaceful pro-democracy protests in March 2011 and had grown into a civil war. Activists groups put the death toll at 26,000.

“We have seen the immense human cost of failing to protect,” Ban said. “We cannot look the other way while the increasing sectarian violence spirals out of control, the humanitarian emergency escalates, and the crisis spills over borders.”
Security force attacks
On Wednesday, 272 people were killed by security force gunfire across the country, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria activist group reported, according to Al Arabiya TV.

Syrian forces shelled rebel-controlled zones of Aleppo before dawn on Wednesday, killing at least 19 people, as rebels also attacked a military airport in the east, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Several blasts were heard in the Jubar district of the capital Damascus as it came under heavy bombardment, and explosions were also heard in the Yalda area just south of the city, the Britain-based watchdog said.

Ten civilians were killed in Aleppo’s neighborhood of Bustan al-Qasr while a total of nine bodies, including seven children, were found in the Marjeh and Hanano neighborhoods, it said.

“Several people were also wounded, some of them seriously,” it said.

Activists have reported relentless bombardments and food shortages in rebel-held neighborhoods of the country’s commercial capital, Aleppo.

On Wednesday rebels also attacked Hamdan military airport in the town of Albu Kamal in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor near the Iraqi border, the Observatory said.

Having failed to persuade the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, the rebel FSA has increasingly targeted airports used by regime attack helicopters and warplanes.

“Fighting has been going on for hours inside Hamdan airport between soldiers and rebels, who have taken over large sections of the site,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that at least six rebels died in the assault.

In Deir Ezzor city, two people were killed, one of them by sniper fire, the Observatory said.